I test a lot of Bluetooth hands-free phone systems. I also test a lot of voice-activation systems. But few work as well together as the uconnect and Voice Recognition systems in our long-term Challenger R/T.
It's a snap to pair a phone, all using VR and even while the car is moving. And no matter what name I throw at it, the VR system gets it right almost every time -- unlike systems in cars costing much more.
I typically test a voice-activated Bluetooth system using names in my address book that I think will trip it up, and usually end up calling Edmunds exec ed Paul Seredynski. While in the Challenger last week, several times I'd just hit the uconnect phone button on the right side of the radio and say, "Call Paul Seredynski, mobile." The VR system would then ask, "Call Paul Sere-dine-ski, mobile. Is that correct?" I'd say yes and the next thing I'd hear after a ring is Paul asking "What do you want?"
I wish all BT/VR systems worked this well and were this easy. And were standard equipment like uconnect on the Challenger.
Doug Newcomb, Senior Editor, Technology, Edmunds.com
dragonflight says:
04:48 PM, 12/ 6/09
No desire to share Paul's phone number with the IL crowd? :)
vt8919 says:
08:06 PM, 12/ 6/09
It's because it's too hot for TV! Yes, Phone Numbers Gone Wild comes action packed with area codes you just have to see to believe!
hybris says:
08:08 PM, 12/ 6/09
Ok I have to admit this is cool when a voice control system hits 90%+ accuracy.
chuckg says:
05:25 AM, 12/ 7/09
I see that the system is recognizing your phone book. According to the manual, uconnect will not read a SIM card....it only reads the internal memory of the phone. If you have two phones with the same numbers in the phones, the system seems to get confused and will read only one phone book. That's been my experience anyway.
Example....I just got a new phone. Uconnect would read my phone book no problem in the old phone but won't read the book in my new phone. I haven't deleted the old phone as of yet, so just maybe that will do the trick. I doubt it though. Maybe it's just my new phone?
All in all the Mygig system is a very fine unit. It's one of my favorite options on the car.
dougnewcomb says:
08:42 AM, 12/ 7/09
@chuckg: Curious if you delete the old phone whether it works with the new one, and which phones they are. Forgot to mention in the post that uconnect also automatically downloads a phone's address book. Love when that happens. My only real gripe with uconnect ... beside that Chrysler doesn't put the button on the steering wheel ... is that there's no way to view your contacts; you can only access them by voice, like in that latest Kia vehicles. But with VA that work this well it's no biggie.
felonious says:
09:31 AM, 12/ 7/09
How does it compare to Sync? (I can't believe it took this many posts to get that question asked.)
dougnewcomb says:
10:56 AM, 12/ 7/09
@felonius: Me too ... and was waiting for the question to come up. In my experience it compares favorably w/Sync and may be even slightly more accurate, since Sync sometimes has trouble recognizing hard-to-understand names on the first try. But that Sync does the same thing (VA) with music makes it the better technology overall, imo.
chuckg says:
07:13 AM, 12/ 8/09
@dougnewcomb- I was due for a phone upgrade and decided on a Nokia 6350. Uconnect saw my phone book on this phone but would not recognize the phone every time I got in the car. I had to reconnect the phone to uconnect occasionally. I got rid of that phone and now have a LG Vu. Uconnect will see this phone every time I get into the car, but it won't see the phone book. I tried to manually enter my names and numbers but uconnect says they are already in the system and won't let me enter them.
I'll try deleting my other phone and post the results.
cr_driver says:
01:49 PM, 12/ 8/09
lets hope your wish come true doug....
chuckg says:
12:57 PM, 12/ 9/09
I deleted my old phone and uconnect still will not see my phone phone book in my new phone. I tried to enter my contacts manually and uconnect says the name is already in the book. I went to the phone book folder and it is EMPTY.
I give up.
actualsize says:
07:28 AM, 12/14/09
I have to disagree. The VR didn't play nice with my voice. I could not get it to bring up the proper phone book entries by name, especially while moving. And the robo-voice is really bad (to the point of humorous) when it reads back the names--it sounds like someone is gargling marbles.